Dinner at Alinea

I just don’t know if I have the vocabulary—or the reflective distance yet—to describe what it’s like to eat at Alinea. I mean, there are tons of reviews that give you the general idea (the decor, the funky sliding door that opens into the dining room, the award-winning service), but I don’t know if anything can really capture the experience of the whole thing. It was, hands-down, the most unusual, disorienting, and playful dining experience I’ve ever had. The food was good—often delicious, really—but in some ways, that isn’t what the night was about. Here are a few of my thoughts—only semi-coherent, so far—on what it was like to dine there.

1. Eating as Marathon

It took us three and a half hours to complete our meal (9:30 p.m. to 1:00 a.m.). I knew that it would take a while to get twenty-~~five~~ -six courses on and off the table, but I hadn’t really wrapped my head around the concept of sitting at a table for 210 minutes while course after course came at us. It was…well, kind of exhausting, in a way. I never wanted it to be over, of course, but it took me a while to realize just what an exercise in stamina it was going to be. I think the pacing and sequencing of the courses were fantastic, but the desserts were a little big (not something I usually say!), considering they came at the end of an almost non-stop eating experience. (And yes, many of the courses were one-bite servings, but several were not, and twenty-three rich, complex “small bites” are still pretty filling.)

2. Eating as Thinking

Maybe one of the reasons the meal was so draining was because your mind was fully engaged in the whole process. At no time could you sit back and nibble, at no time could you “pick at your food.” Whether we were trying to figure out what, exactly, we were eating or how to follow the server’s instructions about getting the food into your mouth (one course required us to assemble our own serving dish; another didn’t allow us to use our hands), we were always thinking as we ate. It’s so odd to be that involved in an activity that is—and this isn’t something to be proud of—usually completely mindless (shovel in food, chew and swallow, repeat). It was fun, of course, but it was also like work as well—work worth doing, though.

3. Eating as Entertainment

I used the word “playful” above to describe the experience, because there really was a sense of fun about many of the dishes. Some of them were “do it all in one bite” exercises in silliness (lots of the courses “popped” in your mouth, forcing you to keep your lips closed). One was inside a glass tube that you had to put to your mouth and suck out the contents all at once—funny sound, embarrassing action, amazing taste experience. The dessert was actually constructed on the surface of our table (albeit after it had been covered by a silicone tablecloth)—sauces dripped all over, frozen chocolate cracked into bits and scattered everywhere (and the resulting expulsion of CO2 or liquid nitrogen across the table made other parts of the dessert coagulate or even change shape), etc. Scraping our spoons across the tabletop, gathering bits and pieces to put in our mouths, was one of the odder experiences of the night, to be sure. Our default expressions through the entire meal were grins—whether of the “How silly is this?” variety or the “How amazing is this?” variety—and how often can you say that about any meal from start to finish?

So those are my thoughts—I won’t bore you with a course-by-course description of what we ate, because that wouldn’t do the food any real justice. Highlights of the meal for me (Tim would differ with me on some of these) were the following:

Course 2: Lobster and gruyere fried and served on a “lollipop stick” which was actually a vanilla bean.

Course 6: A “make your own spring roll” affair where the wrapper was your centerpiece (it looked like a little piece of cloth but was actually a rice paper wrapper!) and you filled it with delicious pork belly and a huge array of condiments placed in front of you.

Course 15: A deconstructed clam chowder (served in a clam shell, of course) which included little “pearls” of Tobasco, giving you a tiny explosive pop when you chewed them.

Course 19: A combination of squab, strawberries, and frisee served on a charred birch log (yes, it was a genuine log and it was smelling like a fireplace—warm and smoky but not overpowering the tastes in the course).

Course 23: A large glass “straw” filled with bubble gum-flavored “pearls,” a hibiscus foam, and creme fraiche. We had to suck it all out in one go—it was hilarious to do and hilarious to watch.

Course 26: The second dessert was notable not only for the fact that it was created and eaten off of our actual table (as mentioned above), but also because it was put together in front of us by Chef Grant Achatz himself! I don’t give a rat’s ass about Bobby Flay or Rachael Ray or other Food Network panderers to the lowest common denominator, but this…this was something amazing. I think this man is a genius, and having him ask us about our meal and create our dessert was a truly memorable experience as well as a sign that for all of the fun of Alinea’s cuisine, this food is something that he takes very seriously.